Funny from the title I thought this was going to talk about how Cities Skylines lacks the soul of Maxis’ SimCity games. Skylines always felt sterile and dead. Just a piece of software. SimCity felt like a toybox buzzing with life and charm from buttons in the UI to the people milling about to the jazz soundtrack. There was vision and creative intent beyond just programming some systems. Hell, as much as everyone threw a tantrum over SimCity 2013 I think it still has infinitely more charm than Skylines.

Don’t even get me started on the gameplay loop that just feels like a simulation more than a game that’s been tightly balanced to be challenging. More of a sandbox with no real challenge to grow infinitely.

Different strokes for different folks but it always made me sad seeing Skylines take off and be talked about while the possibility of a true SimCity successor seems to have been buried with Maxis back in Emeryville.